Day 1: Wheaton – St. Louis

Day 2: St. Louis, MO – Denver, CO

Day 3: Denver, CO – Salt Lake City, UT

Day 4: Salt Lake City, UT – Lake Tahoe/Truckee, CA

Day 5: Lake Tahoe/Truckee, CA – San Francisco, CA

We started  our day 2 journey bright and early Saturday morning with Denver as our goal.  As we left St. Louis, it was hot and humid even at 7:30 so we were not too sad to leave but of course I insisted that we stop at a Starbucks for something to eat.  Since Ryan’s best hours are not before 9 a.m., I opted to drive the first leg of the route.  In case anyone is interested to know, the drive from St. Louis to Denver consists of ample farms and maybe even more “adult bookstores.”   I vowed to drive 6 hours and then switch but as we traveled through the repetitive flat lands, I found it hard to even think that I could make it more than two hours.  So of course I went back on my plan and changed the rules so that we would switch every time we needed to fill the tank.

Our first exit off the highway was outside of Topeka and it promised a McDonalds and ‘clean bathrooms’ at the gas station (I try to keep my standards attainable on roadtrips through the middle of nowhere).  As we pulled up to the gas station we didn’t even make it to see the ‘clean bathrooms’ because we got to witness Jerry Springer live while a man dirtier than most homeless people cussed out a woman with butterfly tattoos down her legs.  I was slightly scared but I continued to watch… I couldn’t resist.  After Jerry Springer Live, we opted to wait it out to grab lunch at a different stop.

Believe it or not, we stuck to the rules of switching drivers at every gas stop and kept to the plan so much so that we ended up going all the way to Boulder since we made great time.  We were really tempted to stop and see the worlds largest Prairie dog (which one small town promised to have) but since we didn’t give in to the temptation, we were able to go out to a sushi dinner downtown Boulder.  (Thanks @Micah for giving us the quick tour of the town!)

(our lovely Boulder, CO accommodations, the University Inn)

Tomorrow we will be making our way to Salt Lake City through Wyoming.  Woot! Woot!

We’re going to be blogging our road trip, so follow along to the excitement that is central Kansas, the delectable joy of gas station coffee & donuts, or the relief of arriving safely to Hayes Valley, SF, CA.

Here’s the game plan for the journey…

Day 1: Wheaton – St. Louis

Day 2: St. Louis, MO – Denver, CO

Day 3: Denver, CO – Salt Lake City, UT

Day 4: Salt Lake City, UT – Lake Tahoe/Truckee, CA

Day 5: Lake Tahoe/Truckee, CA – San Francisco, CA

Packing the remaining items from our apartment in Chicago, this beast stopped by to say farewell (see image left). As we were packing, I totally thought I heard a fire truck…turned out it was a tornado siren. When I asked Moll what we should do, she said, “normally we’d head to the basement, but let’s finish packing”. I was confident in my ignorance. We lived downtown Chicago for 4 years and never once have we heard a tornado siren. Isn’t it lovely that today of all days, as we pack the Pathfinder to the brim, an F1 tornado is spoted within miles of us?  We hoped this wouldn’t be an omen to the rest of this journey across the country.

The luck of the Irish returned when we saw a beautiful rainbow overhead just hours later.

As we spent our last couple of days in Wheaton with Molly’s folks, we were sad to leave the fam and our friends in Chicago, but excited for the trek west.

We started the trip to STL for our friend, Whitney’s wedding with plenty of time to spare. Moll planned ahead to make sure she had an outfit for the wedding and some how in the chaos, I only set aside a suit and dress shirt. I was without shoes, a belt or a tie so Nordstrom Rack was a must.

Although we found the Rack & I got some awesome new kicks, it somehow added about an hour to the trip. This would later come back to haunt us.

The wedding was scheduled to kick off at 6pm and at 5:00p it became apparent that we were cutting it VERY close. We realized that we were not going to be able to stop off at the hotel first and a car change was required. We chinese fire-drilled on the highway so that Moll could begin her prep & I took the wheel. She was looking great and ready to roll but as we pulled up the the church at 5:58 I was still in a t-shirt & shorts. I quickly tossed on the suit and new kicks in somebody’s front lawn and we ran into the wedding, disheveled, but ready for the party.

All turned out alright and the wedding was great. Stage 1 of our five day trip across the country was relatively smooth and when we woke up this morning at the hotel the scooter was still safely hitched to the back of my Pathfinder. Day 1 was solid. The next day would be our longest. STL – Denver & 12 very full hours of driving…

To be continued…

Quick background on the last 10 years of my life…

At the end of high school in 2001 I wanted to stay in Southern CA and attend USC. I didn’t get in. That turned out to be the best thing that would happen to me. I headed out to the midwest to go to Miami OH & had the time of my life. I partied my ass off, learned the basics of business, and specifically Economics, but more than anything, I learned TONS about myself. I learned what I needed to do to be personally successful and feel fulfilled. Then at the very end of college I met someone “more awesomer” than anyone else, @mollstar.

Because of Moll, I decided to move back out to Chicago after a short stint at home and see if the relationship would work. It did and 5 yrs later we married, and it’s awesome. Now for the purpose of this post, the start of the next chapter.

We’re moving to San Francisco

At the end of June, Molly and I are packing up and heading west. It is a move that I always knew would come, but a huge change none the less. We couldn’t be more excited to blaze a path of our own and quite frankly pull ourselves out of a very comfortable situation in Chicago to a brand new life with new friends, jobs, and experiences. But that’s what I love so much about life, the ability to put yourself in new situations and have new experiences with new people. That’s the gold.

The toughest part for both of us will be moving away from Molly’s family who are beyond amazing. They have not become ‘in-laws’ but truly my family that will be painful to leave. The excitement of being on our own is just one side of the coin. The proximity to such an amazing support system will be tough to go without.

But, both professionally and personally this is a step in the right direction. You all have followed our progress with UberCab and the exciting ride (no pun intended) it has become. We’re breaking ground on a space that is ripe for disruption and yearning for innovation. It’s ready for people like us who may not know the market as well as others, but that naivety may be our strongest asset to our ability to change how things work.

The startup community in SF is particularly exciting. The opportunity to meet, literally every week, with some of the smartest business and technical minds on the planet is not something I’ll take for granted. Through my Uber relationships and the many startup meetups in the Valley, my opportunity to learn from the SF startup community is almost unbelievable. Not to mention the guys I’m going to have an opportunity to work along side. The team we’re building at UberCab is already shaping up to be of extremely high caliber and the quality and experience of our advisors & board may be second to none.

I probably don’t need to even speak to this next topic, but I’m pretty damn stoked to leave the winters. I’ve been through now 9 full winters in the midwest and the ability to hang my snow coat up and away is a welcomed change. Next time I pull that coat out will be for a vacation back to our cabin in WI or a weekend trip to Tahoe…which both sound pretty nice.

Lastly, to our friends. We’re going to miss each of you dearly. As Moll & I moved from Miami to Chicago it was the most natural extension of college. In fact when we first got here it basically was college, except we got paid for it. Then as we (believe it or not) matured, we found out that we are actually making legit contributions to the world. I couldn’t be more proud as I look around at each of my friends and what they’re now accomplishing personally and professionally. Somehow I feel that I chose some of the best people back in college and those guys (and gals) have become the creme of the crop. Got lucky I guess. Please know that even though we’re sort of far away, we’ll always work hard to stay close, stay in touch and keep what we started back at Miami very strong.

Above is my SXSW Foursquare scoreboard. Foursquare had a mini game within the app four SXSW participants to checking w/ as many different friends as possible, checkin at as many places as possible, had a collection of SXSW specific badges to acquire, etc. This actually made checking in really fun aside from it’s obvious utility. Another big high five to Dens, Tristan, Harry, Nate, Mike, Mari, Naveen, Tim, & Paul. I am more bullish on foursquare’s potential now than I’ve ever been.

So, back to what went down at ‘south by’. On Sunday night…

Gary’s hotel room

On Sunday night I had the incredible opportunity to hang for an entrepreneurs jam session in Gary V’s hotel room (until 7am). It was literally a group of the web entrepreneurs and investors that I respect the most, including Dave McClure, Travis Kalanick, AJ V, Micah Baldwin, Ryan Sarver, Galpert & others. The conversation rolled from where the power houses are going (Google vs. Facebook), to what sites are underrated (Alice.com & Formspring.me) and what mobile approaches will win (Apple vs. Android). There was some incredibly eye opening and inspiring conversation, and not something I’ll forget anytime soon. I was honored to be included.

In fact, this prank call actually came in (at 5am) when we were all in the room. Notice how Gary fakes asleep, then comes right awake. Hilarious!

VIPitch

On Monday, my last day in Austin I had an opportunity to hang at a happy hour that included another set of bad ass web folk. I got to share UberCab withChris Sacca, the guys from EverLater, Laura Fitton from OneForty.com, and Trammell from Twitter among others. It was again an awesome chance to go into pitch mode and share UberCab with some of the folks that see tons of pitches everyday. And again it was inspiring to get such positive feedback on what we’re building and got me even more excited to launch in June.

Exhausted

So after 4 days of hanging out with some of the most exciting entrepreneurs on the web I was pooped. My average time to bed, and by bed I mean the floor and a sleeping bag, was 5:15am. I had the chance to meet tons of people and share what we’re building at UberCab. I lined up some people for our Alpha in San Francisco and got valuable feedback from potential customers. All around phenomenal trip and an event that I won’t miss next year! Definitely want to thank Travis for hooking me up with some of these opportunities. As far as advisers go, I can’t recommend anyone stronger than I can recommend him, and it’s only been 3 weeks.

So I just spent the wildest 4 day weekend down in Austin, TX for South by South West (SXSW), affectionately known as ‘South by’. The first 5 days of the conference are dedicated to ‘interactive’ which brings out all of the ce’web’rities. Only two weeks into running UberCab and this biz trip takes me to one of the best parties in the country, with some of the most influential folks on the web. Being around so many people who understand what works and what doesn’t on the web is an incredible opportunity and I was ready to just soak it up.

Driskill Hotel

When we arrived in Austin on the first night we cruised over to the Driskill Hotel on 6th Ave. It became obvious that the apps that are games back home are tools in Austin. Foursquare & Plancast became invaluable in finding out who was where, and what not to miss. By the end of the night at the Driskill there were 370 people checked in and I earned the “Super Swarm” badge. I met the guys behind Next Big Sound, bumped (literally) into Scoble, and was so pumped to finally meet Tristan (<– 4SQ biz dev bad ass) who I’d worked with for 3 months all over gchat/skype/email.

I was giddy at the Driskill because as most Midwest web entrepreneurs know, there is a small number of big things going on in this area of the country. So, to see and meet all the people that I’ve looked up to and learned from over the past 2 or 3 years was very exciting for me. At the end of the night we ended up at a room party jamming on industry news and ideas. Overall, amazing start to ‘south by’. I knew that this was going to be an awesome time.

Pitch Mode

If I didn’t mention it, I did SXSW in full budget startup style. I didn’t buy the $500 badge for the conference events, and I didn’t even book a hotel room. In fact, I actually packed a sleeping bag and it’s a damn good thing that I did. I used it   and was saved by some plush couch cushions (thanks Frank Gruber!).

So because of the fact that I didn’t have a conference badge, on Saturday I set off on my own. I was in full pitch mode. My goal was to tell as many people as I could about UberCab, get feedback, and practice my ‘pitch’. You’d be surprised how much better the pitch got after babbling over and over. I’m normally pretty out going and it doesn’t take much to get me comfortable but going into true pitch mode to randoms challenges anyone. It was awesome and the feedback I got was incredible. It’s fun to hear people excited about what you’re working. In the end, it was a very motivating and successful day.

More tomorrow

This post is getting way to long but I’m only half way through the weekend. Cruise back over here tomorrow and I’ll tell you about Gary V’s hotel room & more details about sleeping on the floor budget entrepreneur style!

If you went to SXSW this year, what was your favorite party, panel, pitch, startup, salt lick, bbq, beer, babe?, or band? What was your favorite whatever?

Costa Rica

Costa Rica is one of the most beautiful countries that I’ve ever been to. The combo of the almost year round weather perfection, combined with more activities that you can fit in to a 2 week long vacation, make it possible the perfect honeymoon destination. @Mollstar and I literally had the time of our lives with plenty of relaxation but enough adventure to never get bored.

We stuck pretty strictly to a one day in and one day out schedule. As fun as it may sound, we both knew that too many days just lounging around the resort drinking Pina Colada’s would get old for both of us pretty quick. Here are some of the highlights…

Crazy Ass Pizote Families

Horseback Riding/Rafting/Zip Line/ Volcanic Mud Bath

No horse back or rafting pics. Sorry.

An Awesome Trip to Volcano Arenal and The Springs Resort

A Day trip on Thanksgiving to Nicaragua

And Some Amazing Animals!

I came upon this video from @reecepacheco, a fellow surfer stuck with no waves (he’s in NYC). I grew up watching Rob Machado surf and even saw him in a contest once at Oceanside Pier. He’s amazing and his career has really been an interesting one. He was once very close to top being the top surfer in the world, then stopped competing and did a lot of videos and travel. I don’t know Rob at all, but it seems that this video is a very personal one, showing off the “struggles” of being a professional surfer. Obviously it’s got to be the best lives ever but coming from someone who get’s sick when I don’t feel like I’m accomplishing something, I can sympathize with how just surfing everyday would be a struggle sometimes.

This trailer also got me very excited because next month I’m getting married, and Moll and I are going on a long honeymoon down to Costa Rica. It might be the best vacation ever… I’ll have the 3 of the most important things in the world with me; my new wife, great weather, and the ocean. I’m so pumped.

As Reece points out in his post of this video, surfing movies don’t necessarily do very well in the box office but I’ll definitely be checking this one out.

Last night I jumped on an SWA flight with 5 buddies headed towards Denver, CO. This weekend is my bachelor party, where we’ll be in Denver 1 night, camping in Estes Park 2 nights, and Ft. Collins the last night for a brewery tour crawl. This is no doubt going to be one of the best weekends ever. Let the memories commence…

Rough Itinerary below:

This was organized and orchestrated by my buddies Dan (who likely refuses to be on Twitter), @nsabato,  @allenpenn, & @michaelberner. They have no idea how much I appreciate this.

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Wednesday, September 23rd

Arrivals: Graves, Lowes, Melillo, Penn, Berner, Samic, Burt

Cab into Denver.  Go out in downtown Denver.

Accommodations: 1 night, 6 dudes

Thursday, September 24th

Arrivals: Dorman (AM), Sabato (AM), Shroyer (AM), Coop (AM), Rains (AM), Bowman (PM), Phelps (PM), Gibbs (PM), Torres (PM),

Dorman to pick-up Vans and AM Arrivals

Van Rental Details: 2 mini-vans – 4-day rental

Afternoon:  Van 1 to head to Rocky Mountain National Park with beer and gear.

Some guys renting camping gear from Denver Flagship REI Store. What man doesn’t have camping gear!

Early Evening:  Van 2 to head to Rocky Mountain National Park with Cali Arrivals

Accommodations: 2 night, 16 dudes

Moraine Park Campground, Rocky Mountain National Park

9:00 PM:  Rage at campsite

3:00 AM:  Fight black bear as it try’s to steal our left over hot dogs

Friday, September 25th

7:00 AM:  Wake-up with a slam piece and tell her to skedaddle on out of the tent go home because we have to go catch fish

8:00 AM:  Arrive at fly-fishing location

9:00 AM to 1:00 PM:  Half Day Fishing

Fly Fishing Details: Guide and gear from Estes Park Mountain Shop

2:00 PM:  We do whatever we want in Rocky Mountain National Park

Accommodations:  Campsite Details, 1 Camp, 4-6 tents, same site

7:00 PM:  Arrive back at camp.  Grill out, drink, and kick it

11:00 PM:  Invite Bigfoot and family into camp for s’mores and ghost/bigfoot stories

3:00 AM:  Pass out in woods while taking a pee

Saturday, September 26th

9:00 AM:  Wake up on the forest floor, not in tent.  Regret spending money to rent gear.  Realize still drunk. Decide to go for a hike.

Morning:  Do whatever you want in Rocky Mountain National Park

11:00 AM:  Break camp and head to Fort Collins.  Must be off the campsite by 12 PM per campsite policy.

2:00 PM:  Arrive in Fort Collins.  Check into hotel.  Shower and change.

Accommodations: 1 night, 16 dudes. Best Western, University Inn, basically on CSU’s campus

4:00 PM:  New Belgium Brewery Tour

5:30 PM:  O’dell’s Brewery Tour

7:00 PM – 7:00 AM:  Head back into town.  Drink 1,000 beers each (1,000 beers in 12 hours = 84 beers an hour =1.3 beers a minute).  Wreck Fort Collins, CO.

Sunday

8:00 AM: Wake in Colorado State freshman dorm 60 minutes after going to bed.  Regret spending money for hotel.  Graves is the only person who did not hook-up and slept at the hotel.

10:00 AM:  Check out of hotel.  Head to Denver.  Still have the shakes.

12:00 PM:  Drop van off, fly home still shaking.

9:00 PM:  Graves posts this entire weekend on his one of his websites.  Dorman then copies and pastes that post to www.broslikethissite.com

–> I can take the ribbing, they love my interwebings.

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What did you do for your bachelor party?

via flickr

I’ve grown up with dogs and love them. I have a particularly special place in my heart for Golden Retrievers because a special Golden named Chelsea use to break my falls at the age of 3. Now @mollstar‘s dog, Moose, takes Chelsea’s place. I don’t dive bomb him but I definitely appreciate his attention.

Over the past few weeks I’ve seen a number of internet meme‘s (viral stories) about cool dogs, so I decided to write a quick post on the cool dogs that are making a name for themselves on the internet. This post is definitely different than the traditional post here but sometimes I think that’s not such a bad thing. After you read this post & watch these videos, go give your pup a hug, or go find a dog to add to your family, you won’t regret it.

Skidboot – The best trained dog ever:

David Hartwig, Skidboot’s owner clearly has a special love for this pooch and it’s obvious that this love has lead to their success.

Skidboot listens to David better than most 10 year old children listen to their parents. With this level of training Skidboot has become a star. He was on Oprah, The Tonight Show, and others.

This video shows that Skidboot is going blind and I read that sadly, Skidboot passed away several months after this video. But his memory lives on, thanks to the web.

Faith – The walking dog:

www.faiththedog.net

I was going to do a long write up about how special faith is, but instead I’m just going to say this…

FAITH WALKS LIKE A HUMAN, WTF!?

This has got to me one of the most amazing things I’ve ever seen in my life. I love that Faith’s owner has taken an incredibly talented dog and inspired so many to do things that they never thought they could achieve. With hard work, a little training, and lot’s of Faith, anything can be accomplished. What a great message.

I hope you all are having a wonderful day!

Today marks 2 years of blogging. I started out on ActionsTalk.com, then I was on RyanAGraves.com, now I’m on the URL THE DREAM IN ACTION.com. I thoroughly enjoy the process and have learned a lot in the process. This site gets about 3,000 unique readers a month which, in my eyes, with all the changes to the site, is no small accomplishment. I hope that over the next year we can hit 10k per month. Here’s why…

I write about my dreams, and how to make yours a reality. Why, and where do I get off trying to teach other people how to do it? My hope is that as I answer these questions you’ll see my answers as reasons to subscribe to the RSS or come back to the site on a regular basis. I hope that the experiences I have, that turn into blog posts, help you get closer to your dreams… through action of course.

This Is Not A 4 Hour Work Week

First, it needs to be said that this isn’t a get rich quick blog. It’s not a ‘how to blog for a living’ site or a ‘use the internet to scam people and make a quick buck’ site. I’m not going to try and teach you how to live a 4 hour work week, others do that better than I, so why rebuild the wheel. This site is the all about making your dreams realities on a daily basis. It’s about how to make your life better one step at a time so that you not only achieve your goals in life, but that you enjoy the process.

Full Time Job

I’m an entrepreneur. By that I mean I have revenue streams outside of my day job, but let me be clear, I do have a day job. I do not work on my startup full time and I’ve not reached the point that my entrepreneurial ventures are large enough to sustain my life (YET). However, I definitely believe you can live with an entrepreneurial spirit without being a CEO or a founder of a startup. I’ve written about being a corporate entrepreneur and I know from first hand experience that now, when our economy is at one of it’s shakiest moments, is when large corporation need entrepreneurial innovation the most. Put the dream in action and enjoy what you do by changing your workplace and your life for the better.

After Hours

Over the next year I will draw thoughts and solutions from a few different ventures. I’ll be heavily involved in growing NVRnude.com. I unfortunately can’t go into to much detail about what we’re going to deliver with NVRnude.com but what I can say is that the social web and the transactional web are going to come face to face, and we’re going to lead that charge. You can follow more on the NVRnude Blog.

As you know SocialDreamium LLC has been formally shut down and I will no longer be blogging there. However, I will be drawing upon many lessons learned from that experience. I really like the idea of embracing your failures as energy and lessons. We’ll learn from that together.

As far as The Renliv Group and Actions Talk go, they will continue. The Renliv Group is the funnel that I’ve used for any consulting/advisory work that I’ve done over the last 6-9 months and that will stay available but slow down significantly. If you’re a startup founder and would like to chat or are interested in talking more I’m always up for it, just shoot me an email.

Travel

I’m just coming of a very business travel season. After being in Stockholm, Sweden then Boulder Junction, WI then San Diego I was ready to settle down for a bit, make sure my bills were paid and get back to work. Aside from another trip out to San Diego in August, I’ll be head down on projects until September when myself and about 15 buddies are headed to Boulder, CO for a camping trip/ my bachelor party. Should be a great time to get friends from college and friends from home all together. Then, for my honeymoon in November, Molly and I are headed to Costa Rica for 2 weeks. Now that I’m really looking forward to!

Try and Try Again

If you’ve never heard of Morten Lund you should take some time to learn about him. He’s a European entrepreneur who’s attitude towards the process of starting a business, making and losing a lot of money, and what’s important in life is a great one to follow. He’s uneducated, sometimes a bit distasteful, and more passionate that anyone else I’ve seen. It’s refreshing.

If you have a bit, watch this video (13 minutes), and get an idea for who he is.

Morten’s attitude towards trying and trying again is exactly what I want to bring to my career and in the shorter term, this blog. I’ve tried a few different things to grow this blog and I’ll continue to try whatever I think will work. I changed the blog URL to THE DREAM IN ACTION.com because I thought that the idea of enjoying life day by day and bringing dreams to fruition is an idea that ANYONE can support and continue to learn about. I still share tidbits on RyanGraves.org/anized by the way.

I appreciate your support in this iterative process of growing a community and a blog that adds value to your web surfing.

Why I’m encouraged.

There are a few things why I’m very encouraged to take on another year of blogging and life.

The Economy - We all know it sucks but I really think that this will take some of the competition out of the startup market because right now people just want a pay check. This means that the people who aren’t willing to spend 6pm-1am on their startup will stop doing “entrepreneurship”…maybe they should have been there in the first place? This is a crazy environment where the strong will suffer and the weak will parish but the hard working will always see good times again.

The Gen-Y Attitude – The entitlement thing isn’t what I’m talking about, although I’m sure that does exist, whatever. What I’m talking about is the get things done, always learn the new tool, gotta get ahead, attitude. Not all my friends feel the pressure that I feel to “do something big” but many of them do and I think that’s awesome.

Why are you excited? What do you think of this blog this year? How can I provide more value?